I hate the sounds of modern living. Our ears are constantly subjected to the buzz of technology — computers, refrigerators, heaters, fans, cars, leaf blowers and lawn mowers — that is developed to make our lives easier. And I suppose they do, but at a cost. Silence is rare, if not non-existent, in a city.
Explosions in the Sky, an Austin, Texas, quartet, provides a remedy for this 21st-century drone. Their latest album, “The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place,” is an affirmation that the Earth is, in fact, not the decaying sphere of metal and concrete that comes across in the sound of machinery.
The album begins with the song “First Breath After Coma.” And that’s what it sounds like, an aural awakening after years of listening to buzzing motors. Explosions In the Sky transform the noise of daily life into music. Instead of a leaking faucet, listeners get a steady, dripping guitar note and a bass drum heartbeat. Layer upon layer of instrumentation– guitar, bass, percussion– is added, building texture and creating tension.
In other songs, such as “The Only Moment We Were Alone” and “Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean,” the parts accumulate, becoming more frantic, and then fade, only to return in full force, like a hurricane ripping out street lights and creating waves that erode away the soil. Finally, all traces of civilization collapse into the sea.
The musicians in the band are able to capture the dynamics of the natural world and transform it into thick and dreamy post-rock like that of bands Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor! or The Dirty Three. With its sweeping, grandiose songs, Explosions in the Sky belong to a pretentious genre of music, but not without reason. It takes patience and endurance from the musician to sustain the energy and emotion for so long. “The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place” is only five songs long, but spans just longer than 45 minutes.
Just like the name, Explosions in the Sky is both apocalyptic and stunning.